Man questioned over Dinnington soldier’s 1977 IRA death

Hayley Gallimore

A man arrested in connection with the IRA murders of two soldiers, including one from Dinnington, has been released.

The 54-year-old suspect was questioned about the gun attack on Army vehicles in Belfast that killed Dinnington soldier Michael Harrison, 19.

He and Richard Turnbull, 18, from North Yorkshire, were both serving with the 3rd Light Infantry.

The ambush in on 29th June 1977 left two other military personnel injured.

The arrested man was detained earlier this week in west Belfast by officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s serious crime branch.

He was taken to Antrim police station for questioning and later released pending a report to the Public Prosecutors Service.

They were just two days into a four-month tour of duty in Northern Ireland when they were killed in a hail of bullets as the Army patrol they were travelling in turned into the path of the ambush.

A regimental padre and an officer were both injured in the attack, but not seriously.

A man from Belfast, aged 23, was put on trial for the murders in 1979 and given a double life sentence for his role in the attack.

He was among six people who were charged as a result of the shootings and is understood to be the only one to be sentenced for murder.

The serious crime branch in Ulster is involved in a series of historic investigations into sectarian related crimes.

Earlier this week two men, a 29-year-old man from Falkirk, and a 61-year-old man from London, were arrested and questioned over the sectarian murder of Seamus Gilmore, 18, who was gunned down as he was working at a petrol station in north Belfast in February 1973.